Positech now offers Parasites, a new expansion for Gratuitous Space Battles, their tower-defense-style strategy game. The add-on, which will be released through other digital distributors soon, adds 10 new ships along with new ship equipment and bonuses. Here's word on the expansion's titular parasites:

If you catch them at the wrong time the parasites are a race to be reckoned with. Every 200 years or so they travel the galaxy looking for new hosts, and we're not suggesting that this is a race that excels at making people feel welcome at parties.

The parasites always go too far, they never did get the idea of mutualism and they never have pets (for long). So now they are venturing forth from their adopted home planet and in search of a cognate species which breeds freely and is able to give birth at least once per year, with a good growth rate and preferably (although a bit of crunch is acceptable) without an exoskeleton. The parasitoid race is no longer deterred by bright colouring of potential hosts as they know from experience that these are sometimes simple dye additives that some races ingest in a rather feeble attempt to suggest they may be toxic. They have had 198 years to upgrade their battle fleet in between breeding and snacking and now want to change the menu. Mmm how tasty are you?

Their 'tower defense' description is basically their attempt at describing a vast customizable space warship simulator in a way that won't frighten off most people. It would be like describing Doom but saying "It's like a rail shooter except you have freedom of motion do decide where you want to go".